1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data search techniques, and more particularly, to techniques for performing searches for television content and channels and other items.
2. Description of Related Art
User interfaces for finding television content in early television systems were relatively simple. Television viewers could tune to a channel to locate desired content by entering a channel number or clicking channel navigation (up/down) buttons on the television or on a remote control device. User interfaces have evolved over time to more complex and elaborate interfaces such as interactive EPGs (Electronic Program Guides) now commonly used for browsing and searching for television content.
There has been significant recent proliferation in content choices for television viewers. The increase in content choices has resulted largely from channel proliferation, content disaggregation, and an increase in content source options. With this proliferation of content choices, conventional user interfaces, particularly EPGs, have proven inadequate in helping users quickly and easily find channels and content of interest.
The number of television channels available to television viewers, e.g., subscribers of satellite and cable networks, has proliferated, in many cases beyond double digits and approaching triple digits. This has made it particularly difficult for users to remember the channels by their numbers. Users are more likely to forget the number assigned to a channel than the symbolic name assigned to the channel (e.g., CNN, NBC, PBS etc.). Moreover, when a user is mobile, i.e., not at his or her usual home, and desires to view a given channel, e.g., CNN, his or her memory of the channel number may not be useful since CNN would typically be assigned a different channel number by different operators. Additionally, the growth in the number of channels has also made use of conventional two dimensional grid-based EPG interfaces tedious in finding particular programs of interest and channels.
Early VCRs (video cassette recorders) enabled users to time-shift programs so that the programs could be watched whenever desired. The advent of PVRs (Personal Video Recorders) has, however, immensely catalyzed this disaggregation of programs, further diminishing the value of the channel paradigm. A direct consequence of this phenomenon is the proliferation of available content that can be viewed at any given time.
Additionally, there has been a significant increase in content source options for viewers. As the bandwidth for data transmission to homes has increased, new sources of content such as VOD (video-on-demand) and IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) have become available. This has further increased the available content accessible to viewers.
The success of Google search from a desktop-based PC interface has established the fact that the simplicity of the search interface combined with the correct relevance ordering of results in a flat linear space are important for the ubiquitous adoption of a search engine. Television, PDA devices and other devices with limited input capabilities and display constraints (the display space on a television is insufficient given the large fonts needed to be visible at a distance) pose a challenge to create an easy interface like the desktop-based search, where text entry can be done using a QWERTY keyboard. Text input limitations for television-based search makes it important to facilitate reduced text entry. Furthermore support for dynamic retrieval of results for each character entered is important for increasing the likelihood of a user arriving at desired result without having to enter the full search text. The relevance ordering of results during dynamic results retrieval for each character entered should be such that the user sees the desired results with the entry of the first few characters.
This problem is even more challenging when designing a non-intrusive search interface for television where the results display cannot accommodate more than a few results at any point in time, in order to remain non-intrusive. The correct relevance of ordering is important in this case to avoid the user from having to scroll down to see additional results. The display space constraint increases the importance of personalizing the results retrieval so that the user can get to the results with significantly reduced effort.